Ben's Wife

by Charlotte Douglas

  “Dad bought his condo furnished. I never figured him as a tropical-prints-and-rattan kind of guy, but he managed to put his own stamp on the place.” She picked up a mahogany piece from the chess set on the coffee table and ran her fingers over the intricately carved queen.

  For several minutes, he watched her wander through the apartment, handling her father’s belongings, confronting her loss. With all that had happened since Frank’s death, Morgan had had little time to mourn. He regretted he couldn’t grant more now.

  “We have to hurry,” he said. “Whoever was here could return any moment”

  “Sorry.” She replaced Frank’s pipe, his one vice, in its stand on the table beside his recliner and cleared her throat. “Where should we start?”

  Her brave expression barely covered her pain, and the desire to hold her drove a white-hot spike of longing through his gut. But even if they’d had the time, he doubted she would appreciate his solace.

  She still didn’t trust him. And with good reason.

  “Did your father keep a journal?”

  She looked embarrassed. “I don’t know.”

  “A journal or diary might be helpful. Look for one, and for anything relating to Chemco.” He swore silently at the sentiment in his voice. Morgan’s grief and his own return to Frank’s familiar rooms had affected him more than he’d bargained for.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “I noticed an empty box in the study closet. We can load what we find in it. I’ll take the study, you search the bedroom.”

  After almost an hour of flipping through books and the neatly arranged files in the built-in desk unit of Frank’s study, Josh admitted defeat. Not a scrap of paper contained a single reference to the gasoline substitute or Robert Lashner. Frank must have kept all relevant data at his office, where Lashner would have stolen it after the fire.

  His sagging spirits lifted when Morgan entered the study with her arms filled with books, letters and papers. He swiveled the desk chair toward her. “You found something!”

  “Yes.” Her face radiated a bittersweet elation. “Wonderful things.”

  She dumped her burden on the bed and began sorting. “Photograph albums, letters Dad and Mom wrote to each other while he was in Vietnam—”

  Disappointment filled him. Morgan had found family treasures, but obviously nothing that would help nail Frank’s killer.

  “And Dad’s journals.”

  “Journals?” His expectations re-ignited.

  Her unforgettable eyes sparkled with excitement. “From the time my father was eighteen, he kept a daily record. I brought only the years since he moved to Florida.”

  He shifted from the chair to the bed and patted the spread beside him. “Let me see this year’s.”

  “That’s the odd part.” She settled next to him. “This year’s journal isn’t with the rest. Do you suppose he kept it at the office?”

  His newfound hope sputtered and died. “If he did, Lashner has destroyed it by now.”

  She gazed up at him, still cradling her father’s journals against her heart. Her mournful expression softened her delicate mouth and deepened the startling blue of her eyes. “So we’ve come up emptyhanded.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” He ignored the tender emotions swelling in his chest and pointed to the books and papers scattered across the bed. “Let’s pack these to take back to Ben’s. From the look on your face when you carried them in, I’m sure you’ll agree they made the trip worthwhile.”

  He stood, raised his arms over his head to ease muscles knotted from leaning over Frank’s desk, then bent once more to pack Morgan’s treasures.

  “Sh!” She grabbed his arm. “What was that?”

  Instantly alert, he laid the letters and albums he held on the bed and reached for his gun.

  A scrabbling sounded outside Frank’s door, keys jingled and someone muttered in a low voice.

  Lashner’s man had returned.

  Josh threw his arm around Morgan and tugged her toward the open doors of the closet. Once they had squeezed inside, he folded the doors shut, clutched her against him with one arm and, with the other, aimed his automatic toward the bedroom door.

  The front doorknob rattled violently.

  He’d been a fool to bring Morgan with him, but he had figured gaining entrance to Frank’s place would be easier with her along. Now, instead of finding something to incriminate Lashner, he’d only succeeded in placing Morgan in danger.

  The rattling at the front door increased, and he held his breath. Someone was fiddling with the stiff lock. He drew Morgan tighter. The sudden sensation of her pounding heart against his arm unnerved him like an electric shock. If ever he didn’t need the distraction of her exhilarating nearness, it was now.

  Attempting to ignore the feathery contact of her hair against his skin and the suppleness of her hips fused against him, he pressed his face against the space between the louvers until he could see the open bedroom door.

  He cursed his luck. A confrontation with Lashner’s thug would be totally nonproductive. Even if he captured the man and took him to the police, they’d have no reason to charge him, other than for trespassing.

  Josh remembered his disguise, lying on the front seat of the car. He would have tipped his hand and revealed his identity for nothing.

  But capturing Lashner’s man was the best scenario the night had to offer.

  He didn’t want to think about the worst.

  The front door opened and banged against the entry wall.

  Josh flipped the safety off his gun and waited.

  Chapter Five

  Morgan cringed and jammed her fist against her mouth to keep from crying out when the front door struck the wall. Memories of the voice of her vicious abductor at the airport echoed in her mind, sending perspiration trickling down her backbone. Without the protective support of Josh’s strong arm, she would have crumpled to the floor from the buckling of her knees.

  Josh, however, seemed to take the intruder’s entry in stride. He hadn’t flinched at the noise. She would have known. Her body molded every one of his muscles in an embrace so intimate, if she hadn’t been terrified, she might have embarrassed herself by doing something really stupid. Like standing on tiptoe to kiss the handsome scowl off his lips and run her fingers through his thick, dark hair.

  But fear had an amazing way of clearing her mind, even of a temptation as provocative as Josh. Pressing her eye against an opening in the louvers, she braced herself for a glimpse of the new arrival.

  Muttering softly, the newcomer closed the door, approached the bedroom with an erratic, shuffling gait and stepped across the threshold.

  Morgan’s breath whistled through her teeth in surprise. Hovering in the doorway was a tiny woman, stooped and frail, who had to be eighty if she was a day. Her bright eyes, magnified to owllike proportions by thick glasses, swept the room, taking in the books and letters strewn across the bed and the desk drawers standing ajar.

  “Oh, dear. Oh, my…”

  Dismay sounded in the old woman’s breathless voice, and she clasped a wrinkled hand, spotted with age, against her heart. Morgan didn’t know her but was certain she hadn’t been hired by Lashner. The woman turned and disappeared into the hallway in the direction of the living room.

  Morgan felt the tension drain from Josh’s muscles, but he didn’t loosen his embrace. Without the distraction of imminent death, her blood began to simmer again, making immediate escape mandatory.

  She stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. “I’ll speak to her.”

  He turned to face her. For a searing instant his eyes burned into hers and his lips lingered so close to her mouth she could taste their heat. Too soon he released her and holstered his gun.

  Breathless from that brief encounter, she slipped from the closet. Josh closed the door behind her.

  “Hello,” she called out in what she hoped sounded like a cheerful greeting. “Is somebody here?”

  She
rushed into the living room just as the old woman was exiting the master bedroom.

  “Who—” The woman’s weathered face creased into a warm smile. “You’re Morgan. I should have guessed it was you.”

  “Yes. Have we met?”

  The woman bobbed her head, bouncing soft waves of white hair. “At the funeral. But you might not remember, there were so many people. I’m Esther Clark. From next door.”

  “Would you like to sit down? I’m afraid I must have startled you.”

  “No, I won’t stay. I looked after the place whenever your father was away, and when he died, I couldn’t bear to see his plants wither and the dust collect.” She handed Morgan a key on a chain with a plastic disk advertising a local pizza parlor. “But now you’re here.”

  “Thanks for taking care of the place,” Morgan said. “You’ve been very kind.”

  “No, love.” She patted Morgan’s hand. “It was your father who was kind. Any spot of trouble, from a burned-out bulb to a tripped circuit breaker, and he fixed it for me, straight away. Checking on his apartment seemed little enough in return for all his favors.”

  “I’m sure he considered you a very good neighbor, Mrs. Clark.” Morgan walked toward the front door in hopes the woman would follow.

  Esther tottered after her. “I see you’re packing up. Are you planning to keep this place?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  Esther stopped at the door. “I hope you will. The apple never falls far from the tree, so I’d enjoy having you next door.”

  After the woman left, Morgan leaned against the door to catch her breath. She was still recovering from the fnght of Esther’s unexpected arrival and the onslaught of desire Josh’s proximity had elicited.

  In the study, the closet bi-folds creaked, and in seconds Josh joined her in the hall. “She’s gone?”

  “Why didn’t you come out? I would have introduced you.”

  He avoided her gaze, and when he spoke, he sounded too casual. “My appearance would have only complicated things. Esther might have stayed longer.”

  “You know her?”

  “We met a couple of times when I visited Frank. She was constantly bringing a batch of fresh cookies or a loaf of homemade bread, which your dad always ate, and then he had to play twice as much racquetball to keep his weight down.”

  His reply was relaxed and easy, but his eyes were shuttered like a house in a storm. The uncomfortable notion that he hadn’t wanted Mrs. Clark to see him niggled at her, reinforcing her previous suspicions.

  “Ready to finish packing?” he asked.

  “In a minute.”

  Josh returned to the study, and she entered the kitchen. When she’d believed Lashner’s man had arrived, fear had parched her mouth, and she longed for something cool and wet to wash away the sensation of spiderwebs in her throat. She reached into a top cabinet for a glass, and her gaze fell on the counter of the pass-through.

  “Josh!”

  He appeared almost instantly. “What is it?”

  “The one place we forgot to look.”

  She pointed to the answering machine, half hidden on the countertop by the drooping fronds of the fern. Its blinking red digits indicated two calls.

  Josh punched the rewind button, then play. A computerized voice announced the date and time.

  “That’s the day Dad died,” Morgan cried.

  “Frank,” a man’s voice said, “this is Rob—”

  “It’s Lashner.” Josh’s face turned cold with fury.

  “Meet me at the plant at seven tonight, in your lab. I want to discuss that offer of mine you’ve been resisting.”

  Josh stabbed the stop button with such force, the machine jumped.

  “That’s proof, isn’t it?” Morgan said. “Lashner lured Dad there to kill him.”

  Josh shook his head. “It’s not enough. It only explains why your father was at the plant that night. We still can’t prove the explosion wasn’t accidental.”

  “But if we do—”

  “Then this could be another nail in Lashner’s coffin.” Josh flipped open the machine and reached for the tape.

  “What about the second message?”

  Josh closed the lid and pressed play again. The automated voice announced the current date and a time just a few hours earlier that afternoon.

  Then the same male voice filled the room. “Morgan, this is Robert Lashner. We met briefly at your father’s funeral. I’m assuming you’re staying at Frank’s place. I’ve been meaning to invite you to dinner, my dear, so we can share our memories of Frank.”

  Morgan frowned as the smooth, cool voice left a number at which he could be reached. The tall, pencil-slim man with coiffed gray hair and mustache and wearing a European hand-tailored suit had shaken her hand solemnly at her father’s graveside and shed crocodile tears into a black silk handkerchief.

  So refined and civilized with impeccable manners. Who would have believed he had tried twice to have her killed?

  Who would have believed he’d murdered her father, a doting and loving parent, a considerate neighbor, a brilliant chemist, a good friend? Frank Winters hadn’t deserved to have his life snuffed out simply because he was an impediment to Robert Lashner’s greed.

  Her determination hardened like steel, and she curled her fists at her sides.

  “Whatever it takes,” she reiterated to Josh, “tell me, and I’ll do it. I want that—” she struggled for a word vile enough to describe Lashner, but couldn’t find it “—that sorry excuse for a human being to pay for what he’s done.”

  She looked up into the deep richness of Josh’s brown eyes and met agreement. Josh ejected the tape and slid it into his jacket pocket.

  “Should I return his call?” Morgan asked. “Maybe if I have dinner with him, he’ll make a slip, say something to incriminate himself.”

  “Lashner’s too smart for that. He’s only inviting you to draw you out so his thugs can grab you. He probably called because his men reported they’d lost you at the airport.”

  “I thought that’s what you wanted, to use me as bait.”

  Guilt flickered across the strong planes of his face. “But not to put you in real danger. Ben and I are working on a plan, one that will force Lashner’s hand.”

  “And it involves me?” She ached for a chance to insure Lashner’s punishment.

  “You bet.” The set of his jaw and the hard look in Josh’s eyes mirrored her resolve. “Together, we’ll bring Robert Lashner down.”

  MORGAN SPENT the following morning delving into the photograph albums, journals and letters she had brought back to Ben’s from her father’s condo. The process brought cleansing tears that lightened her grief and made her feel she had enjoyed one last visit with her father, whom she’d lost in such a cruel and senseless way.

  She found nothing to incriminate Robert Lashner, but something else she didn’t find disturbed her more.

  She had scanned every journal from the year her father moved to Florida through the past year. His entries solidly confirmed his friendship with Ben Wells, his dislike and distrust of Robert Lashner, and his fondness for Esther Clark, his doting, elderly neighbor.

  Not a single line contained Josh’s name or any reference to him.

  At a polished mahogany table built for twenty, she ate a lonely luncheon in the dining room with its wraparound view of the gulf and pondered the significance of Josh’s absence from her father’s recollections. Josh’s accounts of his years as her father’s friend had been convincing, but, according to the journals, Josh’s stories had all been lies.

  If he’d lied about his friendship with her dad, what else had he lied about?

  The dilemma stole her appetite, and she pushed away the Wedgwood china plate, her salad of chicken and Tokay grapes barely touched. Ben would have the solution to this puzzle, and he was returning home from the hospital this afternoon.

  She and her questions would be waiting for him.

  After lunch, she lingered
in the living room, browsing through magazines without really seeing them. When the grandfather clock against the stairwell in the foyer chimed twice in the stillness, she began to pace the entry hall, listening for the hum of tires on the sweeping brick drive. At their arrival, she flung open the double doors and rushed out into the torrid sunshine of the Florida afternoon.

  Harper had parked the dark blue limo close to the front door and removed a folding wheelchair from the trunk. He extended the chair, secured its braces and opened the rear door. Morgan watched with a catch in her throat while he assisted Ben from the car to the chair, attached a small oxygen canister to the rear of the chair and rolled Ben toward her.

  “Welcome home.” Her rush of affection at the sight of him surprised her.

  Ben lifted his face and took her hand in his gauzecovered ones. The ubiquitous bandages swathed his features, his dark glasses protected his damaged eyes, and the oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth. She had to bend closer to hear his reply.

  “It’s good to be home, and especially to have you waiting. When you left for the airport the other night, I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”

  “I’m back safe and sound, thanks to you.”

  “And thanks to Josh.” He squeezed her hand gently before releasing it, and Harper wheeled him into the house.

  She followed them into the living room. Harper parked Ben’s chair beside a low table and pulled the draperies against the bright glare of the sun.

  “Do you wish the lights on, sir?” he asked.

  Ben looked to Morgan. “It’s up to you.”

  The closed curtains had plunged the room into dusky shadows, but she considered Ben’s impaired eyes and shook her head.

  “Thanks, Harper. That will be all.” The oxygen mask distorted Ben’s voice but didn’t totally obliterate its pleasant resonance.

  The stocky manservant withdrew, and Morgan dragged a chintz-upholstered hassock beside Ben’s chair and sat at his feet.

  “Now,” he said, “tell me everything, starting with the last time I saw you.”

  Morgan launched into her tale, beginning with the attempted kidnapping. The clock in the foyer was striking three when she related the discovery of Lashner’s messages on her father’s answering machine.